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Category: maintaining order

It was time for us to head north. Jo was getting anxious to get on with her new life at the senior residence. Tumbleweed was still concerned about the back wall. She had nightmares dreaming about we cats slipping out the back as she drove down the road leaving us scattered along I-95.

Since we spent most of our Florida time near the Gulf of Mexico…and a little too close to alligators for my comfort…we stopped for a couple of nights at a park on an outer bank of Florida where we were surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean except where the causeway reached out from the mainland.

Jo went out with her big shady hat to sit on the beach and enjoy watching the waves. However, it turned out to be windy and she soon wanted to come back to the RV where she didn’t have to hold on to her hat to keep it from blowing.

Soon we were on the road backtracking on the roads that we used coming south. When we got to Oswego, NY we were really ready to sit still and be able to sleep on the dash which we couldn’t do while driving. (Remember: No cats allowed on the dash while the RV is in motion.)

We delivered Jo to her new residence. She had just moved in after selling the farm when she decided to go to Florida with us. Now she needed time to get used to her place and all the new people that she would be living with.

We were enjoying Lake Ontario and our site at Sunset RV Park. But Tumbleweed wanted to get the back wall repaired so she soon moved all of us cats to Paws and Effect to board there while the RV was being repaired. Peanut and Jelly were going with Tumbleweed and staying in a motel near the Camping World where the repairs were to be done. Lucky dogs!!

We had a good time in our temporary quarters where someone fed us, changed our litter pans and let us out to play in a large room for a while each day. More space than we had in the RV. Termite was the only one who didn’t enjoy this foray.He was so shy and all he wanted to do was hide. But this was like being in a fish bowl and sometimes the “keepers” forgot to give him his blanket to hide under. They got him mixed up with Butter who never wanted to hide. He was just a big show-off.

Though we were well treated and well taken care of, we all were glad to get into our crates to be carried back to the RV. No matter how good things are, there is no place likehome. Most of us really appreciated that sound: HOME. We had been wanderers or shifted from home to shelter etc. so we really had good feelings of coming home….even if our home was on wheels.

While still in Punta Gorda, we had our first Christmas in our home on wheels. What seems strange is the lack of snow and cold weather. Can this really be Christmas in December? …..or do you think it’s July?

Tumbleweed received mail that was not a Christmas greeting. It let us know that there was a recall on our brakes!! We were able to get another month in Punta Gorda waiting for our appointment for the brake work.
When we finally got to the RV shop we found out that the new brakes were on back order. It would be another month. So we drove carefully to the Everglades. I did not like alligator alley. Not only were there alligators near the road but a high fence was in place to keep the panthers away from the road.

We stayed in a nice park but some spots were still being cleaned up from the last hurricane. Once we got settled in our spot, I warned Butter not to try his trick of jumping out the opening in the screen for the handle. It just might be his last jump.

Late one night Truffles and Iggy were in the hallway in hunter mode in front of a lower drawer near the floor. Tumbleweed opened the drawer very carefully thinking that there might be a mouse. However, they found Paco. When Josephine put her shoes in and took out her slippers, he must have climbed in and she closed the drawer. He went from one drawer to another and rearranged everything.

Look at the size of this little Maine-coon mix! I don’t know how he fit!

We were finally able to return up to Ft. Meyers where the RV shop now had the brakes to replace ours. Now we can head to the east side of Florida and take a look at the Atlantic Ocean.

Well. We hung around Maryland for a couple of weeks. While Tumbleweed and Jo were visiting and seeing the sights, we enjoyed playing in the RV. It was nice having the slider out. Some of us would run from the back of the RV up to the front end of the couch, jump up on the couch and then climb right up the wall where there was some material covering part of it. We could grab hold for a bit and then fall back to the couch. We had a great time while the humans were out.

Sometimes they took the dogs with them and it was really CAT TIME in the RV!

Then, we pulled everything in and brought the slider back into position. Time to move on! They mentioned Durham, North Carolina…I checked out the map. It was quite a drive. We went far enough West to avoid the traffic around Washington, DC.

We had a hard time finding Birchwood RV Park because it was actually inside Durham. It was near several hospitals, medical centers and Duke University. Many of the people in the park were patients waiting for or recovering from surgery especially for implants. The dogs told us about some of the people they met when out walking.

One day they came back excited because they met a chocolate lab that belonged to a man who lived and worked in the park. He was actually a sculptor originally from Columbus, Ohio. His little house was in the woods and I heard Tumbleweed and Jo talking about the wood and stone carvings that he had in his yard. The Lab was called Rocky and Harley (that’s the man’s name) thought it was a good joke that he had carved a statue of Rocky out of stone (instead of wood).

We were there for Thanksgiving and Tumbleweeds relatives went on to Florida to be with their family for Thanksgiving. Harley accepted an invitation to go to Cracker Barrel with Tumbleweed and Jo for turkey dinner. They came back smiling so I assume they had a good time.

Well, when we were ready to leave the park, Harley brought Rocky over to say goodbye. I think he had had a couple beers before coming to see us. He brought Rocky right into the RV and sat down to talk. We – both cats and dogs- went to the back room for safety. He was really big…even our dogs were too small to take him on … even though Peanut (our Chihuahua) challenged him a little. But she stopped when Jelly didn’t join in with the barking.

Butter who is the craziest cat that I have ever known kept running out and challenging Rocky to play with him, and then when Rocky reached out his big paw, Butter would run to the back room. But before long he would come right back out again.

Harley finally was beginning to nod from his earlier drinks and he left taking Rocky home with him. A little later, there was a scratching at the door. Rocky wasn’t finished visiting. Tumbleweed opened the window and told him to “Go back home”. He left. But a little while later he was scratching at the door again. Same routine! “Rocky, go home!” After this happened several times, Harley came and got him and must have taken him inside because we never saw him again that night.

The house was emptied: everything sold or in the RV or put in storage…Tumbleweed’s older friend, Jo had just sold her family farm and moved into Senior housing. She was ready for a change and an opportunity to visit a childhood friend in Florida. We picked her up at her Senior housing: packed, smiling and ready to take a long ride in our home. So the door closes and she takes her Seat on the passenger side. She soon got used to all of us 4-leggeds. She talked to us, petted us, rested with us all around her and even let Butter and Bandit share her bed (as long as they slept at the bottom.

We pointed south down Route 81, into Pennsylvania and experienced sleeping next to Truckers (many of them had dogs with them, Jelly and Peanut met them when out walking. I loved watching for that Flying J sign where RV’s had special parking and weren’t in the lot with the truckers.

We kept on going through southern NY, into and through PA and into Maryland. We had so much fun seeing the countryside through our windows and seeing early Fall when we had just left late Fall.

Our Home on wheels was cozy but full….now we were 7 cats, 2 dogs and TWO Humans

Our test drive in the summer of 2005 was a trip to Ohio where Tumbleweed’s family grew up. Sun Valley Camp Ground was about 3 miles from her sister’s home.The park was combined with a mobile home park and surrounded by farmland.

The cats in the back room were making a big fuss. Tumbleweed sent me back there to straighten things out. Well, the problem was that a large yellow cat had decided that things looked better where we were than on his farm. He was trying to climb aboard. I first settled down the cats inside who were arguing the issue. Then I hissed at the cat outside and suggested nicely that he should go home.

Tumbleweed had continued working on her computer which was set up on the dash of the RV. Butter and Bandit started fussing behind the curtain that was closed over the front window whenever we were parked. They kept pushing against the computer as they tussled behind the curtain.. When she finally stopped typing and pulled back the curtain, there was that big yellow cat sitting on the outside mirror and looking right in at her.

She told him, “We are all filled up! We don’t have any more room. You better go on home.” I think she figured that seven cats and two dogs were a full bus load! I felt sorry for the poor guy as he walked away toward the nearest farm. We didn’t see him again.

When we were traveling on the road in the beginning, Tumbleweed told all of us cats to get in the bedroom and she would close the door to try to make us safe. The two dogs stayed up front and usually traveled in the carrier. Jelly felt safe there and Peanut would push in to be with him. When we stopped at the road-side rest stops, she took the dogs outside to potty. After they came back inside she would open our door so we could move about and see the landscape where we were. This worked well for a while until we convinced her that she could trust us and she began to leave the door open so we could pick our own riding places.

(they look innocent sleeping near each other here) When Paco and Butter had a ‘tiff’ on the dash while she was driving through a construction area, she laid down the law: “NO CATS on the dash while I’m driving.” Then she said, “SUNNY, you sit up here next to me and keep the others off the dash.” That’s how I became the co-pilot of this fantastic tour bus for cats and dogs.